SUMMER 1837
Säk`ota Ä´otón-de Pai, "Summer that the Cheyenne were massacred," or Á`k`ádo Pai, "Wailing sun-dance summer." The figure is the conventional Indian symbol for a battle, with the party attacked defending themselves behind breastworks thrown up in the sand, and the arrows flying among them; below the main figure is another of a man wearing a war bonnet. Compare the battle pictographs from the Dakota calendars as given by Mallery ([figure 75]).
Fig. 74—Summer 1837—Cheyenne massacred.
At the time of the fight the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache were camped upon a small tributary of Scott creek (Pohón-ä P'a, "Walnut creek"), an upper branch of the North fork of Red river, southward from the present Port Elliott in the panhandle of Texas. It was in early summer, and they were preparing for the sun dance; a young man was out alone straightening arrows when he saw two men creeping up, with grass over their faces. Thinking they were Kiowa deer hunters, he advanced to meet them, when they fired and wounded him and his horse; he fled back to camp and gave the alarm, and Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache rushed out in pursuit. They soon came up with a small party of the enemy, who proved to be Cheyenne. The Kiowa and their allies killed three of them there, and following the fugitives killed several others; continuing along the trail down the north side of the creek to a short distance below its junction with Sweetwater, they came upon the main camp of the Cheyenne, who dug holes in the sand and made a good defense, but were at last all killed except one, who strangled himself with a rope to avoid capture. The bodies of the dead Cheyenne, 48 in number, were scalped, stripped, and laid along the ground in a row by the victors. Six Kiowa were killed, including the grandfather of the present Lone-wolf. T'ébodal, the oldest man now in the tribe, was engaged in this encounter.
Fig. 75—Battle pictures (from the Dakota calendars).
Set-t´an states that one Cheyenne wearing a war bonnet was killed as he came out of a tipi (see [figure 71]). Other informants do not remember this, but say that the Kiowa captured a fine medicine lance in a feathered case, and also a pabón or Dog-soldier staff, of the kind carried by those who were pledged to die at their post. The stream where the battle took place is since, called Sä´k`ota Ä´otón-de P'a, "Creek where the Cheyennes were massacred." The summer of the occurrence is sometimes called Á'k`ádá Pai, "Wailing sun-dance summer," because, although the Kiowa wailed for their dead, the sun dance was not on that account abandoned.